This year, though, there is a feeling that the ending might be a little different.

Oh, the teams still played the classics on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium: Wright-Phillips scored again, Villa answered again and two players were sent off as the teams played a 1-1 tie. But for a change, as the second-place Red Bulls and third-place N.Y.C.F.C. jostle for position behind league-leading Atlanta United in the Eastern Conference, both can claim to have much bigger goals than city bragging rights.

It already has been a season of change. Both teams hired a new coach at midseason, with Domenec Torrent replacing Patrick Vieira at N.Y.C.F.C. in June and Chris Armas taking over for Jesse Marsch in New Jersey a month later, and the good news for both is that little seems to have been lost in the transition.

Armas’s slide one chair down on the Red Bulls’ bench has been seamless as the longtime assistant has stuck with the players and the tactics that worked for his old boss. The Red Bulls are 5-2-2 under Armas and still a tough puzzle to crack, with a core of midfielder Tyler Adams and center backs Tim Parker and Aaron Long locking down things defensively and Wright-Phillips doing the heavy lifting up front. His goal on Wednesday — an off-balance header in the 37th minute — was his 16th this season, second-most in the league.

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Connor Lade, right, of the Red Bulls and Ben Sweat of N.Y.C.F.C. going up for a header. CreditSteve Luciano/Associated Press

Torrent, a longtime assistant to Pep Guardiola at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City, has matched Armas’s fast start. In Wednesday’s result, a gritty comeback for a tie — seen out by a nine-man team — his squad showed it could be full of fight and dangerous on offense, thanks to Villa, even when wounded.

Even Torrent’s reaction to Eloi Amagat’s first-half red card — sending on striker Jo Inge Berget rather than retreating into a defensive shell — hinted at ambition and fearlessness, and it paid an immediate dividend. After a half of side-to-side passing that produced little offense, Berget’s directness quickly yielded a goal after he headed down a long pass into Villa’s path in the 52nd minute.

Much work remains for both teams, however. Berget limped off with an injury four minutes after the tying goal, adding his name to a growing N.Y.C.F.C. injury list, and Amagat and defender Ebenezer Ofori must serve suspensions after they received red cards for reckless fouls.

“Right now,” Torrent said after the game, “we are in trouble.”

But the Red Bulls did not go home satisfied, either. Despite having a man advantage for more than a half and two extra players for the final 17 minutes plus stoppage time, they failed to produce another truly dangerous scoring chance, and so also failed to put a little distance between them and their cross-Hudson rivals as the playoffs approach.

“We would have liked to have put the game a little more on our terms — a lot more on our terms — in the second half,” Armas said, happy for the point but clearly wishing it was three. He knows as well as anyone how hungry the Red Bulls, an original M.L.S. franchise still seeking their first title, are for something to celebrate. (N.Y.C.F.C., in its fourth year, has an even thinner playoff history.)

The tie, then, kept everyone right where they were when Wednesday night’s game kicked off: looking up at Atlanta United, glancing over their shoulders at the rest of the league, and wondering if this year’s playoffs, at last, will produce a reason to cheer.